pFriem + Beervana Baltic Porter

Common porter was the dominant brew in England during the cusp of the 18th and 19th centuries, bringing rock-star fortunes to the beer barons of London and great beer to a global clientele. Porter was sent to the East Indies well before India pale ale, and it was just as revered in the Baltic regions as it was at home.

The heartiest forms of the style survive today as Baltic and imperial porters. These two porter progeny represent a harkening to British maritime roots as well as a Continental modification. Siblings to the more famous imperial stouts, the strong porters became templates for brewers in Scandinavia, Russia and Poland and adapted to local brewing practices and preferences. Some versions are bottom-fermented, others top, and they range from malty brown to roasty black. They are malty, full, and round on the palate.

This beer was brewed in collaboration with author and beer historian Jeff Alworth. His input on the style is best put in his own words:

“London Porter was the first truly international style, and it circled the globe—North America, Ireland, Australia were important markets that would soon make their own versions. The Baltic trade for porter was especially avid, though, and we are more familiar with the casks that ended up in St. Petersburg (Russian imperial stout and all that). Another stop on the Baltic Sea was the city of Gdansk, which was, depending on the moment, a part of the dying Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, a Prussian port, or a free city. Under whatever jurisdiction, Gdansk (or as it might have been called during some of those periods, Danzig) was receiving shipments of London porter by the 1790s.

Over the next forty years it was a common import in Poland and a special one, Cornell tells us, selling for a lot more than local beer. It might have remained an import because such was the reputation of London Porter that few believed it could be made to the same quality locally. History intervened, and two multi-year interruptions on imports forced local brewers to begin making it. Maybe they couldn’t make it as well as Barclay Perkins, one imagines them thinking, but damned if they could go without, either.

I suspect they did fine—and in any case, it evolved to become a regional specialty. Brewers continued to make what was called “local porter” throughout the 19th century, but as with all styles, their version migrated from the original. By the time brewers were making porters in the 19th century, the second great international beer style—pilsner—was also winning converts among Polish brewers. Because they now had breweries set up to make lager beer, Polish brewers started lagering their porter as well.

One of the points Cornell makes is that among the porters brewed in the Baltics following their introduction by the British, Poland’s version was quite distinctive:

“Several other countries around the Baltic produce beers that are descended from the double brown stouts once shipped from London, and very fine beers many of them are, but these are, genetically still pretty close to those original DBSs. In Poland, however, many (not all) brewers developed their own twist on DBS.”

The style we now call Baltic porter—an 8-10% almost-black lager—is the beer the Poles were making. When we say Baltic porter we really mean Baltic porter as it’s made in Poland—or Polish porter. For a while, I was calling it Polish porter for this reason, shoe-horning the history into casual conversation whenever I could. It seemed like cultural theft not to give Poland the credit.”